


asteroid meat!

by pectin



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Frenemies, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pectin/pseuds/pectin
Summary: The thing is, Seokmin's eighty-nine percent sure that Mingyu finds him somewhat hot. He only knows this because they'd run into each other at some awards dinner after the Championship Cup a while back, and – after downing enough champagne flutes – they'd sloppily made out in the men's room until the cognitive dissonance of sucking faces with his childhood frenemy became too much for Seokmin to bear. And now he's been avoiding Mingyu for the past year and a half.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Lee Seokmin | DK
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31
Collections: Enduring Dawn Round 1





	asteroid meat!

**Author's Note:**

> [SILENTLY SCREAMING] thank you mods for putting up with me T____T ♡♡♡

Seokmin and Mingyu, for the record, are _not_ friends. This fact is directly contrary to Soonyoung claiming the exhibition match he'd arranged for their Trainer School reunion to be "a battle between two old chums," as if he hadn't been a key eyewitness to all the times twelve-year-old Mingyu figuratively wiped the floor with Seokmin on the blacktop. He'd run all the way to the Pokemon Center beside a sniffling Seokmin, comforting him with an, "Aw man, you'll get him next time for sure, _Seokku."_ Other life update: he never did, and now Seokmin has to pause, squinting at Soonyoung's lagging and pixelated smile on his Rotom phone, before replying intelligibly – "What."

Soonyoung's image blurs. When it refocuses, his face is frozen in nervous laughter, and the audio of it comes in through Seokmin's earbuds two seconds later. "It'll be fun, I promise!" he insists. "Besides, all the kids love you after your presentation for Career Day. They keep saying they want to see Seokmin- _ssaem_ in action, you know?"

Seokmin feels his heart melt a little. "They _did_ like my live demo of the Dynamax phenomenon." There was nothing really like almost ripping the roof off your old classroom to the delight of a hoard of ten-year-olds while you introduced them to the concept of super-sized Pokemon via your dad's old Snorlax. Besides the point but the stern talking-to Jeonghan sat him down for after that near-disaster was one of the most terrifying experiences in Seokmin's life, and Seokmin once thought he'd been close to death after a Beedrill sting in Bukhansan Forest when he’d just started his Gym challenge at fifteen. Which brings him to: "Wait, doesn't Jeonghannie hyung hate Mingyu?"

"Hate is a strong word," Soonyoung replies cryptically.

Now that he's looking more closely, the shock of yellow sitting atop Soonyoung's head isn't actually a funny-looking hat, but his Pikachu. "You haven't asked him about that yet, huh," Seokmin deadpans.

 _"Pleeeeease,”_ Soonyoung pleads with his hands clasped together. "It'll be just like our Trainer School days! You and Mingyu used to have matches all the time, right?" (To Soonyoung's credit – yes, they did, but Seokmin had also been on a streak of four wins to one hundred thirteen losses, built up from the time they were eight and Mingyu was this snot-nosed kid who suddenly picked out Seokmin from the rest of their class as his rival. He knows this for a fact because he still has his now-outdated Vs. Seeker sitting in his room somewhere that blinks these stats to his face whenever he fishes it out. _Whenever_ as in _not often._ Not often as in actually last night, when he was feeling particularly nostalgic about his Gym challenge days. This is just to say, Seokmin has only four videos saved on that Vs. Seeker – three of them his actual victories over Mingyu, and the fourth accidentally overwritten by him the time he'd enthusiastically taken a fancam of Jung Jaehyun performing at his first Pokemon contest. It was so shaky and his voice was so embarrassingly loud behind the camera that Seokmin got mildly nauseous after watching two minutes of it.) "And now you're this suuuuper prestigious Pokemon researcher, and Kim Mingyu hasn't won a Championship title in ages. Doesn't the saying go something like, 'Living well is the best revenge?'" Soonyoung's Pikachu slides down the side of his face before falling into his lap, narrowly missing where Soonyoung slaps his own thigh as emphasis. "You should show him how hot you've gotten, Seokku!"

The thing is, Seokmin's eighty-nine percent sure that Mingyu finds him somewhat hot. He only knows this because they'd run into each other at some awards dinner after the Championship Cup a while back, and – after downing enough champagne flutes – they'd sloppily made out in the men's room until the cognitive dissonance of sucking faces with his childhood frenemy became too much for Seokmin to bear. And now he's been avoiding Mingyu for the past year and a half. Instead of translating this mortifying ordeal into Soonyoung-digestible pieces, and, in combination with his lifelong inability to say no to anyone, Seokmin gurgles unconvincingly, "I mean, I guess."

Soonyoung’s eyes soften. “Well, let me know if you’re up to it,” he says, his Pikachu hitting his face with its tail as it climbs back up his arm. “I can ask Hansolie again,” (Hansol was a year Seokmin’s junior in Trainer School and a promising Pokemon prodigy that made the front page news back in the day. He’d been slated to win his first Championship Cup three years back until he dropped out of the running to, in Seungkwan’s words, pull an _Eat, Pray, Love._ According to hearsay, he came back to Korea with an entirely new team of Pokemon after setting his old ones free into the wild, and was now apparently a proponent to the Pokeball-free lifestyle. One fan account even said they saw him riding the metro with his three meter tall Galarian Weezing filling the train car with its Neutralizing Gas.) “Or maybe even Jaehyun? Do you think he’d be up to it when all he’s been up to is coordinating?”

Seokmin almost falls off his bed. “Jaehyun?” he echoes. “As in _Jung_ Jaehyun?”

“Do you know any other Pokemon coordinators named Jaehyun that went to our school?” laughs Soonyoung, finally reaching for his Pikachu and hugging it to his middle. And then his laughter fades as he realizes – “Please don’t tell me you still have that Wailord-sized crush on him, Seokku.”

Seokmin, admittedly, in addition to being a doormat, has always been a fool in the face of love. That face for more or less of the past decade being Jung Jaehyun’s, who Seokmin has reflexively harbored a school-boy crush for since they’d all gone through puberty. And, being a fool puppeted by his love hormones, Seokmin tells Soonyoung without thinking more about it, “I’ll do it.”

“Wait, really?” Soonyoung frowns. “You don’t want to sleep on it or something?”

And here lie Seokmin’s famous last words: “It’s been years,” he laughs, repeating what Soonyoung had said earlier. “I think I can take down Kim Mingyu in a battle now, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think I can take down Kim Mingyu in a battle,” Seokmin blubbers to Hansol three days later, chin propped against the backrest of the seat in front of him.

They’re sitting in Sangam Stadium with the summer sun beating down on them in the stands, watching a closed-to-the-public practice match between Mingyu and Lee Chan, who Hansol happens to be childhood friends with. Chan also happens to be the kid with the Oshawott who used to challenge anyone who walked past the Pokemon Center in their hometown. Seokmin doesn’t think Soonyoung ever told him, but they all started taking the other route out of the city to avoid having to face him every few days – aside from Jeon Wonwoo, who didn’t want to bother walking the extra five minutes. Well, anyway, Chan’s held the Champion title for the last two years so maybe Seokmin was missing out on something there by trying to avoid confrontation like the boogeyman. Which, to no one’s surprise, he’s also doing now, only daring to peer at Mingyu over the top hats of Hansol’s Weezing and having to constantly wave its haze out of his face.

Hansol tilts his head to look at him. His Snubbull’s slobbering over the sleeve of his hoodie in his lap. Even Seokmin, who grew up helping out at his family’s Pokemon daycare, doesn’t know how he can put up with that. “Why not?”

Here is an apt opportunity to detail the deep-seated history of Seokmin and Mingyu’s lopsided rivalry, abridged into four parts for convenience:

I.

At age nine, it was time for Seokmin to start thinking about building the Pokemon team that would take him all the way to the Champion Cup. (“Maybe you should start smaller,” his noona had suggested in response. “Seokmin-ah, do you even know your type advantages yet?” After a meaningful pause, he’d replied, “Yes,” in such a way that they both knew no, he in fact did not.) He’d run into a nice fisherman at the Pokemon Center who told him he’d give Seokmin the most invincible Pokemon for 50,000 won – which happened to be exactly the amount of allowance Seokmin had saved from years of doing the family grunt work of cleaning the Rapidash stables. Looking back on the memory now, the ahjumma sitting two tables away sipping her coffee had been eyeing their entire exchange warily, which really should’ve clued Seokmin in on something about the whole transaction being – pun not intended – _fishy._

“I’m winning today, Kim Mingyu!” Seokmin had yelled across the blacktop that Monday. “I’ve got a super powerful Pokemon on my team now!” He twisted the bill of his cap to the back of his head, the tell-tale second-grader sign that things were about to go _down._ “Go, Magikarp!”

Needless to say, Seokmin did not win that day.

II.

Mingyu, two months before they’d set out on their Gym challenge, came up to Seokmin one recess and pointedly looked at the Togepi he’d been bouncing around in his lap. “Are you ever going to evolve your egg baby?” he asked while crossing his arms over his chest.

Seokmin covered his Togepi’s ears. (Or at least where he assumed they’d be. The dread of asking his mom to talk to his teacher because he’d been failing Beginner’s Pokemon Anatomy was still fresh in Seokmin’s memory.) “She can hear you, you know?” he replied, petulant. “And don’t be rude and call her egg baby. She has a name!”

“Oh?” Mingyu raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”

“None of _your_ business,” (Actually, Seokmin would’ve rather been on the receiving end of a Hyper Beam than have to admit that his seven-year-old self had thought the name _Eggy_ was genius for his new egg-shaped friend) “Don’t you have better things to do anyway? Like let Chan challenge you to a battle and steal his lunch money when he loses?" (After months of guiltily watching Chan eat plain triangle _gimbap_ from across the blacktop, a week ago, Seokmin had lost to him on purpose, if only to give him enough money for a better lunch.) "Or be top in class again or something?”

A haughty, self-satisfied smile stretched across Mingyu’s face. “Three years in a row,” he preened, puffing out his then-nonexistent chest. He deflated just as quickly, and frowned, “That’s what I’m saying, Seokmin-ah. Don’t you think I’m the perfect rival? Like, in a I’m-achieving-so-much-and-it-makes-you-want-to-work-harder-to-surpass-me kind of way.” He narrowed his eyes a bit. “You really have to pick up the slack, you know?”

Seokmin did his best to glare back (“Aww, Seokku,” Soonyoung had said when he’d tried practicing on him once, “You look just like an Abra!” “Hahaha,” Seokmin forced himself to laugh instead of crying. He’d been going for an Arbok instead. “That’s exactly the Pokemon I was imitating.”) “And what does that have to do with evolving my Togepi?”

“Well.” They both watched as it ran off to happily roll around the basketball court. “Maybe you’d actually win against me more when we battle.”

Seokmin sputtered, _”You’re_ the one always challenging _me!”_

Mingyu shook his head, disappointed. “Maybe it’s also because you got a C minus on our last type match-ups exam,” (“What’d you get, Seokmin?” he’d obnoxiously asked, leaning forward in his seat behind Seokmin’s to glance at his test score after their teacher had passed back their papers. “Oh… well, I got full marks.” An aside but, 71 points was actually on the higher end of Seokmin’s Trainer School grades index, thank you very much) “Hey, do you want me to tutor you? Or maybe you need to catch more Pokemon. My mom said that there’s been a lot of Lotad in the park these days since it’s monsoon season. You can’t depend on that Magikarp forever, right? I mean to beat my Growlithe –” (Seokmin, thoroughly annoyed by this point, threw the only thing he had on his person at the moment at Mingyu’s perfect face. Which just happened to be the busted Pokéball he’d tried to catch the Snorlax sleeping near his apartment complex in, before Jeonghan woke it up by playing his Poké Flute.

“Jeonghannie hyung,” Seokmin whined to him after they’d run away, and Jeonghan bought him an ice cream to make up for the loss, “The next time I lose to Kim Mingyu, you better be the one paying him.” When it was time for Seokmin to go back home, the Snorlax was sleeping right in front of the intercom. He camped out beside it until his dad finally came home from work.) _“– What the Pyukumuku, Seokmin?”_

III.

Fast forward to the end of their Gym challenge journey. They were both nineteen, and Seokmin had finally rounded the last corner of Victory Road when he came face-to-face with Mingyu wiping his forehead with the bottom of his shirt near the springs.

“Oh,” he paused, shirt still lifted. “You’re here, Seokmin.”

Seokmin’s first instinct was to stare at the slice of exposed skin of Mingyu’s abdomen. His second was – halfway through the realization it was probably counter-productive to find your rival from childhood hot and finally managing to wrench his gaze away before he could construct a full-fledged hypothesis along the lines of _IF the contours on Mingyu’s stomach were abs, THEN Seokmin was going to have_ – to shout, “Kim Mingyu! I challenge you to a battle, for old time’s sake!”

To say the resulting trek back through Victory Road to the Pokemon Center was mildly unpleasant would be an understatement. Seokmin had nightmares on and off for months about climbing ladders in the dark and Mingyu's face being superimposed onto a Machamp.

IV.

In regards to post-the aforementioned make out session they’d had – Mingyu actually had the decency to shoot Seokmin a few messages. Like: _hey, r u still in seoul? :)_ (Seokmin wouldn’t be in a week, flying out for a research assignment in Alola. He chose to mentally jump forward in time to then and answer _NO_ ), _this randomly reminded me of u lol_ (It’d been a video that went viral half a year ago of a garden full of bonsai-esque Sudowoodo suddenly coming to life. Admittedly, it kept Seokmin awake at night trying to decipher why Mingyu had sent him this), and – after being left on read for twenty-five hours – _wow ur rly ignoring me, huh?_ (Back in the third grade, Seokmin'd been given the yearbook superlative _MOST LIKE A WIMPOD_ after their class field trip to Gwangmyeong Cave ended with Seokmin's ear-piercing scream when a Spinarak dropped down from the eaves and onto his sneaker. Unfortunately, the Applin does not fall far from the tree.) The problem is, Seokmin ghosted him like a Ghastly, and now his _we won’t ever cross paths again [cue nervous laughter] right?_ safety blanket has been figuratively torn apart in the Rotom Wash as he stares down Mingyu on the pitch while mentally weighing his odds.

Seokmin nicely sums up all of these formative childhood experiences as, “Kim Mingyu is _hnggggh.”_


End file.
